Blessed Anna de los Angeles, January 10

Blessed Anna de los Angeles

Arequipa, 1602 – January 10, 1686

Blessed Anna de los Angeles spent almost seventy years at the Dominican monastery in Arequipa, Peru. Wholly dedicated to God, she was like an angel of good advice for her people. She died January 10, 1686 and was beatified on February 2, 1985. Her remains lie in Arequipa, in the monastery of St. Catherine of Siena.

Roman Martyrology: For Arequipa in Peru, Blessed Anna de los Angeles Monteagudo, virgin of the Order of Preachers, that with the gift of the Board and with the prophecy worked generously for the good of the whole city.

Anna Monteagudo Ponce de León was born in Arequipa, Peru in 1602 from Spanish Sebastiàn Monteagudo de la Jara and a woman of Arequipa, Francisca Ponce de León. At the age of three, her parents entrusted her to the Dominican monastery of Santa Caterina, for her education. She returned home at 14, and, after a year spent with her family, in 1618, wanted to return to the monastery, despite her father’s opposition, to make the novitiate, with the name of Anna de lo Angeles.

In the monastery until 1632, she exercised the offices of sacristan, then, until 1645, the Mistress of Novices, and until 1647 the Prioress. She was also exemplary in prayer and charity, both inside and outside the monastery, prodigandosi on the board and the missionary spirit, with great mercy even to the souls in purgatory. She was faithful to conventual observances, with constancy, maturity and balance. After ten years of illness, during which she became paralyzed and blind, she died January 10, 1686, at the age of 84 years. Even in life she enjoyed a reputation for holiness. Pope John Paul II beatified her on February 2, 1985, during his trip to Peru.